Refuse sacks spewing bottles, cans and nappies are scattered alongside old washing machines, a sofa, a bed, and a vacuum cleaner on a roadside at Culleens in Co Sligo.
It should be a beautiful area - the narrow bog road runs over high ground giving views over the surrounding countryside and across to the sea at Easkey.
Instead, rubbish tumbles down from the roadside and paper and plastic bags are blown over a wide area. Sligo County Council litter warden Ms Aideen Feeney picks up a plastic bag and foul-smelling liquid runs down her arm.
One would imagine that the people who dump rubbish like this would face heavy penalties but fines imposed in Sligo courts last year ranged from £50 to £200 - well short of the maximum £1,500 allowed under the law. Those prosecuted also have to pay legal costs and the litter warden's expenses.
Ms Feeney has to go to incredible lengths to get prosecutions. She roots through bags searching for documents with names and addresses. Usually they are torn in pieces and she searches until she finds the full name and then goes home to piece the document together.
This woman, who was a national school teacher for 22 years, gets all her job satisfaction from seizing upon that vital piece of evidence she needs to get a culprit into court.
"People say to me `how can you do it, going through bags of rubbish', but I love this job. The money you get paid means nothing compared to the satisfaction you get when you find the evidence," she says.
Dedication is a job requirement. She has come across dead lambs and even dead horses and there are health dangers, particularly from rats. "When I started first, my stomach used to churn," she says.
She estimates that about two-thirds of the rubbish she finds could either be recycled or composted. Bottles and cans make up a large part of it.
The scene at Culleens, which has already been cleared twice by the council, is by no means unique in the county and such illegal dumping probably happens in every county in the State. Rubbish is regularly dumped at some of Sligo's most scenic spots with people taking advantage of litter bins to dispose of domestic rubbish.
This year so far Ms Feeney has 13 court cases pending, four of which relate to the site at Culleens. All she can do is hope the presiding judge will impose heavy fines.
Since 1997 the law has at least made the job of the litter warden slightly easier. Before they had to see the person in the act of littering. The Litter Pollution Act of 1997 states that "the contents of litter deposited which gives a reasonable identity of the person from whom the litter emanated will, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, constitute evidence that the litter was deposited by that person".
Ms Feeney says recent publicity from court cases has made people wiser and they are now making sure no evidence is left. Envelopes with windows are discarded but not their contents.
As well as taking prosecutions, she can also issue on-the-spot £50 fines. If people refuse to give their names, there is little she can do, and she has a better chance of catching those who throw litter from cars by taking the registration number.
Up until March she was working part time; last year she issued 19 on-the-spot fines and brought 12 cases to court. The maximum fine imposed was £200. She says the "polluter pays" principle does not happen in reality because the council has to pay the cost of clearing away the rubbish even after cases where there have been convictions.
Her job has now been made full-time and she has been given a van with litter warden and her telephone number written on the side. As well as responding to calls she will also be patrolling the county. She remembers only one occasion when she felt threatened.
"A woman became very aggressive when I refused to tell her the name of the person who had reported her. I never go into people's houses and it was a time when I was very glad I was sitting in the car on the roadside."
Neither the abuse nor the stomach-churning task of searching through rubbish will deter her. "It is a beautiful county and why should we allow it to be destroyed?"